Marlene Chism's Blog, page 4

Taming The Mismanaged Mind: Tip #4

We’ve already talked about three important strategies to take control of your mind. The first one is to become aware of your story, second, challenge your narrative and third, stop feeding the beast. Which tip has been the most impactful for you as a leader or as one who coaches your leaders?

Here’s the last one in the series: Tip #4

Practice responsible language

The unmanaged mind makes you believe you’re a victim of circumstances instead of a creator of your reality.

It only takes a few conversations to easily determine the mentality of a victim or a creator. When we speak responsibly, we take ownership of our experiences, including our interpretations, emotions, and relationships, and we can easily identify our choices in any given situation.

In contrast, the disempowered view life through the lens of having no choice—being a victim of circumstances, needing others to change but not recognizing the opportunity for self-change. You can get a good dose of irresponsible language by reading through Facebook posts during an election year.

How do you identify irresponsible language?

ComplainingExcusesBlameResentmentDisrespectArguingLack of curiosity / know it all

 

Conclusion

If your story is the source of your suffering, your story can also be the source of your salvation. If suffering is the effect of wrong thought in some direction, then “right thought” can reduce or eliminate suffering.

I’m known for saying “conflict is not the problem, mismanagement is.” So, the mind is not the problem, the mismanaged mind is.

As leaders we manage processes, priorities, and results. What if the next frontier is to tame the mismanaged mind?

Stay tuned for my new course: Mastering Conflict Conversations: The Performance Coaching Model. Sign up on the waitlist to be notified when it’s ready!

To your success,
Marlene Chism

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Tame The Mismanaged Mind: Tip #3

We’ve already talked about two important strategies to take control of your mind. The first one is to become aware of your story, and the second tip is to challenge your narrative. I’d love to hear of any insights you’ve had if you’ve had time to practice.

Today is tip #3, Stop feeding the beast!

Stop feeding the beast

The unmanaged mind is a beast that wants to live. The beast lives on negativity, self-sabotage and criticism. As a leader, pay attention to those who engage in self-sabotage, and beat themselves up verbally.

This habit is often guised as a joke, or as “self-awareness.” Underneath is often a hope that others may say, “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” or “That’s not true at all.”

Don’t allow your team, employees or colleagues to feed the beast! Here’s why: Eventually harsh criticism turns outward toward the team, the boss, or the organization.

The inner critic is fueled by the mismanaged mind, which eventually leaks out in behavior and language. So, stop feeding the beast!
Next week will be the final tip on how to tame the mismanaged mind.

Best,
Marlene Chism

PS: I’m booking speaking speaking engagements and executive retreats for 2025. As you know, there are only so many spots. If you have interest in exploring either of these, reach out and we can set a time to talk. In the meantime I have a few videos from one of this year’s executive retreats. You can find them here.

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Tame The Mismanaged Mind: Tip #2

Last week tip #1 for taming the mismanaged mind was to notice your story. As Dr. Phil would say, “you can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge.” Every single one of us has a story going on in the background. The problem isn’t that you have a story, it’s that you believe all of it! So let’s challenge the narrative!

Challenge the narrative

Ask a coworker, colleague or friend to challenge your narrative. Many moons ago I had an assistant challenge me. She heard me beating myself up for a mistake, and she said, “Stop being so hard on yourself! You’re learning!”

Our upbringing often influences us in ways we don’t realize. My assistant told me that her father always encouraged her and when she failed, he would always ask, “What did you learn?” This was a total contrast to the criticism I experienced growing up.

The point here is to recognize that your team members or colleagues may have had to overcome a lot of family dynamics and criticism which lives on unconsciously. You can rewire yourself and help others to rewire when they understand that so much of our behaviors are programmed before we were fully developed.

To your success,
Marlene Chism

PSS: What I’m up to…right now.  
I’m building an online course to teach leaders my framework for having important conversations sooner rather than later. It’s called Mastering Conflict Conversations: The Performance Coaching Model.

If you want to join the wait list to learn about the launch, sign up here!
You’ll even get to assess your current understanding.

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How to Tame the Mismanaged Mind: Tip #1

Last week I said I was going to give you some strategies for taming the mismanaged mind. The mismanaged mind is the source of most of our suffering. Once you learn to “tame the beast” you can also lean how to coach your team. Here’s tip #1.

Notice the story

Your unmanaged thoughts become the story, or the narrative from which you experience life. In other words, the story you tell is the life you live. You can’t fix what you can’t acknowledge, therefore the only way to shift the narrative is through awareness.  If you don’t yet have the ability to notice your thinking, pay attention to your conversations, especially the ones about yourself.

How do you talk about yourself? Listen to the first two words, “I am.”  I’m so stupid. I’m so clumsy. I can’t dance even if I tried. I’m not this or that. Listen for clues that indicate a victim mindset, for example, “This would only happen to me.”

As a leader, listen to the language of your team members. If they constantly berate themselves or tell a story where they are often the unfortunate victim, you’ll need to offer some coaching support. This isn’t about telling people to “be more positive.” It’s about helping them shift their reality. There’s a saying in Narrative Coaching: “Your story is the source of your suffering.”

Stay tuned, and next week I’ll share strategy #2 for taming the mismanaged mind.

Best,
Marlene Chism

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Taming The Mismanaged Mind

You may think your mental suffering is due to your toxic workplace, a disengaged team, or your unfortunate circumstance. And while these things can affect your well-being, there’s nothing that can make you suffer as much as your unmanaged mind.

The unmanaged mind leads to “wrong thinking,” and wrong thinking leads to suffering.

As James Allen said, “Suffering is always the effect of wrong thought in some direction.”

Your unmanaged mind is the home to your inner critic. Your inner critic is responsible for your suffering and is worse than any boss you will ever have. Your inner critic micromanages you and makes you doubt yourself.

Your inner critic tells you that you could have done better and reminds you of all the things you’ve done wrong when you were learning.

Your inner critic ruminates on a grammatical error after you’ve sent the email. Your inner critic doesn’t recognize success. It’s never enough. There’s always more you should be doing or could be doing.

In the next few weeks I’ll be offering several strategies to tame the mismanaged mind. These tips will help you, but can also help you coach your employees, especially during these heated political times.

Stay tuned,
Marlene Chism

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8 Easy Ways to Regain Focus

Most things that keep us down are not circumstantial. It’s our bad habits, obsessions and addictions that drain our energy and make us lose focus. If you’re ready to refocus and reenergize here are eight simple tips to help you refocus and reenergize.

1. Stop comparing yourself to others. You are unique and so is the next person. You can’t play someone else’s game, and you can only compete against yourself.  If you want to improve in some area, work on building the capability, but stop focusing on comparison and start focusing on your own game.

2. Don’t take the bait. Notice how many people waste energy on social media arguing with people they don’t know. Negative people are all around, but you don’t have to engage, prove your point, or have the last word. Recognize your choices. You can let it go, ignore it, or even turn off your device.

3. Stop complaining. Talking about what is not working or who did you wrong is a waste of energy. Once you’ve identified, the problem, ask for what you want or set an appropriate boundary, but don’t waste time endlessly about something that’s already happened or something you can’t change.

4. Give up the need to be right. Others don’t always need to understand or agree with your point of view. If you know what you need to do, do it. Give yourself and others the freedom of choice. Stop wasting energy asking for permission or trying to get agreement on decisions that are ultimately yours.

5. Stop criticizing others. Constantly focusing on other people’s weakness drains your own energy. Rather than harboring resentment, go directly to the person with whom you have the issue bring the situation to their attention so they can make amends. Recognize if this is a re-occurring pattern that you are the common denominator.

6. Take regular breaks.  The body craves rest and recovery every 90-120 minutes. Working without breaks breeds exhaustion and increases the likelihood of mistakes. Each day schedule time to rejuvenate and your effectiveness and productivity will increase.

7. Take charge of your time. We humans spend a of time talking about how busy we are. Being busy makes us feel important, and business is an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for priorities. Instead of saying, “I don’t have time,” say, “I have other priorities.” Now you’re focusing on your priorities, not the constraints of the clock.

8. Stop saying “I can’t.” Saying “I can’t” strips you of personal power. Instead of saying “I can’t,” say, “I won’t” or “I’ve decided not to.” You’ll still get the same result but now your decision not to do something is out of personal responsibility instead of blaming an outside circumstance.

 

Article originally published published in the Marlene Chism Newsletter on LinkedIn.

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The Fifth Hidden Intention

This is the last in the series of Letting Go of Hidden Intentions. If you missed some of the newsletters or if you just want to see the entire list, here’s the link.   The last one is to let go of proving your power.

The Intention to Prove Your Power

If your discipline seems a bit over-the-top compared to the mistake that was made, ask yourself if you have the need to prove your power. Don’t get into a power struggle to show them you’re the boss. Don’t make one employee the scapegoat for everyone’s poor performance. Check in with your manager-colleagues to make sure your course-correction is geared toward making the employee better. Overpowering someone only feels good in the moment, but longer term you will be more respected if employees view you as fair.

If you’re an executive and you have middle level managers who are newly crowned a leader, pay attention to this hidden intention.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the series.
Marlene Chism

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The Fourth Hidden Intention

Our intentions will come out in our conversations and in our behaviors. That’s why I’ve been covering the five hidden intentions to let go of.
If you missed the first three, stay tuned and on the last one, I’ll give you a link to see all of them.

This week I’m talking about letting go of the intention to comply.
“But compliance is necessary” you might say.  Read on to see what I mean.

The Intention to Comply
We’ve all initiated a difficult conversation for the purpose of documenting the conversation instead of for the purpose of improving performance. If you find yourself dreading the conversation and not putting any effort into it it’s a good sign you might have fallen into the compliance trap. Take a moment, and get clear on what the employee can do, or should stop doing in order to improve performance. Put more concern and effort into the conversation rather than just showing up to document the conversation.

The reason so many leaders simply comply is that they don’t know how to master conflict conversations. I’m going to be launching my own online course to teach the same skill that is in chapter 7 of my book from Conflict to Courage. Sign up to be notified when it launches!

Best,
Marlene Chism

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The Third Hidden Intention

We can have an intention without  being aware of it. We’re on a roll uncovering the five hidden intentions. As a recap, the first one is the intention to punish, and the second one is the intention to prove a point. But what about the intention to show off? Let’s look at intention #3 The intention to showcase your brilliance.

The Intention to Showcase Your Brilliance

If you find yourself feeling good about knowing more, you might be tempted to showcase your own talents rather than coach the employee. Make sure you aren’t using your conversation as a stage for bragging rights. Don’t talk about your seniority, your education or your experience. You don’t have anything to prove. Instead, think about ways to use your education, experience and seniority to help the employee shine.

Everyone likes to be admired, but no one likes a show off. If you already know you’re brilliant you don’t need to always take center stage. If any of your managers are busy showcasing their brilliance, it could be an issue of leadership identity.

I talk about that in From Conflict to Courage. 

Warm Regards,
Marlene Chism

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The Second Hidden Intention

Last week we talked about hidden intentions, the first one being the intention to punish. You know, documenting so you can terminate someone.

Hidden Intention #2 The Intention to Prove a Point

If you find yourself preparing an argument, your focus is in the wrong direction. While your employee might have a contrary point of view, there’s no need to play verbal ping-pong. You’re the boss, but don’t forget that you’re on the same team. You don’t have to win the match point to prove you are right. Simply get clear about your desired outcome and you won’t be distracted to play a game where there’s a winner and a loser.

When you intend to punish, or when you intend to prove a point, you’re no longer on the same team. Do a little inner work, and clear the energy before you have that next conversation.

To your success,
Marlene Chism

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